Sacred Maternal Brokeness

My husband rocks. Love him so much. He's kind and thoughtful and sentimental to the max but also pushes my edge, is tough as nails to argue with and has a more willpower than anyone I know. Sometimes he says exactly the right thing, I love having anther person there to be stable and think clearly when I am feeling off or melting a little.

Last night one of the boys was having a bedtime meltdown....after having a dinnertime fit....and a pre-Daddy coming home screaming and crying session. I took a break because I couldn't handle it anymore and was on the verge of crying myself. I found A, and shut the door to the room, and told him, " Sometimes I feel like such a broken person that I can't handle the crying anymore. What's wrong with me?"

He laughed, and he hugged me and he told me..."That's your design....remember? Nothing is wrong with you. You're wired to not be able to ignore it. Good motherhood means being bothered by the cries of your little ones. You're perfect."

I cried. And felt totally good and right and seen.

Space Sharing With Your Spouse

Feeling a little cramped in my own house today. A has been holed up in the office all week on important (must keep the kids quiet!!!) phone calls and dodging in and out of the house for meetings and gym runs. This morning he left while I was out with the boys and he locked up out of the house by accident. Its so hard to switch up your regular routine and toss a new person and new demands into it, right? It seems so cozy to spend extra time together but the reality is a little stickier.

I always thought I was extrovert until I realized that being an introvert is more about needing alone time than it is about hating people. Read this fabulous book all about introvertism and came away with a whole new perspective and an understanding about my need for space and recharging. Makes sense that having my little world invaded, even by my own spouse, would make me feel a little encroached upon now that I feel legit about my own wiring. Autumn feels like a season that pushes all the introvert buttons extra hard too, its all of the moment: stand at the sink peeling apples for hours and stock the larder with homemade apple sauce, read books alone in the dark by the light of a lantern, get up in the quiet and start a coffee cake before the children get up, walk home from work alone and take a shortcut through the woods to kick leaves....you get that right?

 

Sharing is good but admitting your own needs and boundaries is also good. Sometimes a little open-eyed clarity is the key to stopping the obsession and high-stepping past your own little stumbling blocks. I think one of the problems is that I also skipped my mama-night out alone this week. So, now I'm off to the library to look for a good book that I can take off and read alone after dinner just to get myself out of the house and breathing in a little solo space.

Poetry Friday: Marriage Advice for Myself

Happy Poetry Friday everyone!

I am writing today about a personal journey I'm having at the moment. I chose a theme word for this year to help me focus my thoughts and ideas and efforts. This is the year of "Acceptance" for me. I'm working more to accept the circumstances I am handed, to accept the problems that I am facing, to accept the people who have been put in my life, to accept myself and my flaws, to accept the good I'm given and the help and creativity and hope around me.

One of the biggest areas I'm really flexing the acceptance muscle is in my marriage. Its so easy to decide that the person we are with needs to change all of their problems, to distance ourselves from them and find ways to differentiate instead of unify, and even to wish away for refuse to acknowledge some of the truth of the current state. I'm on a quest to go to a different place: a knowing and a seeing that is not resignation but just awareness and honesty with overtones of oneness and deep compassion for him and for myself.

And then I made a poem.


If I Were Wise

If I were a wise woman
I would allow my husband to just be.
I'd let him care obsessively about
The exact time he goes to bed and the
The turning off of lights in empty rooms.
I would let him rage about slow traffic
And children who forget to put their shoes on.
I would listen to his worries about the
Dangers of caffeine and alcohol and liberals
And understand it all as his honest now.
I would live like a great warm radiator at his side,
Walking my own path and letting go of his.
I would see myself winking from his mirrored-skin
And hear his voice ripple in my exultant shout
Below the great cement arches of an over-pass. 

Go to Violet's blog this week to see all the other contributors to Poetry Friday today and read a cozy bunch of verse.

A Christmas Date

A and I are taking time out tonight to go out alone together and get a little couple space. It's really good to do this anyhow, in normal life, but right now...when I am doing daily battle with the holiday gremlins of chaos, it's even more important.

 I need to remember that I love him, even if he drive me crazy. That we can enjoy being together. That love is the deepest, best good in life. That we are a couple, not just parents, employees, homemakers, schedulers, packers, bakers, cleaners, policemen, caregivers, creators, and homeowners. I hope this will be a new tradition. Our own, window of love in the madness of the season. A time to be still together, to step away, to absorb the beauty around us, and to purposefully make a small memory.

I'm not sure where we're going...we haven't had time to plan anything, so we'll make it up. After we go somewhere fun to eat and hopefully laugh a little bit, we're going to try to find a special Christmas ornament in a shop somewhere, for each of our boys, one that we can label with the year and their name and hold in our hands and imbue with all the warmth and richness that this year has held for our family. A small way to remember this time and try to help ourselves stir the aroma of purposeful hope just before we rush wildly out of town.

A Sheaf of Painted Papers

Just sharing more of my latest paintings with you all today...been a while since I posted any of them. I'm still swishing away with my brushes on Tuesdays at my art group and loving it just as well. There is nothing that can replace community...to do things that you love in the company of others who love it just the same will give you a power not to be underestimated. I am quite addicted.

These ducklings are what I was working on today. 

My sister Foxy's ducklings to be exact...and I'm not done yet but I thought I'd share 

because I'm so excited with how they're coming so far. I like the composition a lot.

And here is a genuine framed painting of mine. See! 

This is actually the one I entered in the church art show I mentioned.

And in other news, today was our 8 year wedding anniversary! Hooray! Very hard to believe we have been married that long. Our marriage is in 3rd grade. Lovely. Told A tonight, during our stroll around the grounds of the New England inn where we had dinner, I think this has been our best year yet. Barring the euphoria of the year we were only dating, I think we've had no better time. And even the euphoria probably only brings that year up to a tie with this year. Pretty good stuff. Am enjoying marriage very much these days and feeling very bullish on the whole concept of another 8..... or two or three 8's as the case may be. Bring it on!

After our dinner we were driving back and woohoo!!! The periodic lobster special at one of my favorite little grocery stores was on! And we dashed in for a late night lobster run, you can never have too much lobster and when its only 5.99 a lb....why dawdle.

In some ways I feel made for New England.

Meltdown Music

Yeah, *cough* so, it was just yesterday that I was beaming generously out to the world my recipe for chocolate cake and telling everyone that I was whizzing along so well....heh.

But isn't that the way it works? Cloudbursts yesterday, meltdown today despite the golden morning sunshine. Well, now I've had the meltdown out of the way so lets hope I'm just on my way to normal again and have the bumps out of my system...I know its just part of rolling with the punches and really, really getting the engine humming.

Today, a video link of a new group I've discovered recently thanks to the wonderful magpie skills of my friend Alison. Please enjoy this extremely fabulous German band who do a wonderful collective peppy Elvis impression. I can't stop toe tapping when I play this song. I'm dedicating this to my patient husband who listened to me rave and cry all the way to his work this morning and then hugged and kissed me extra as he got out instead of cold shouldering me for even a minute. You're a gem dear, and you can stand under my umbrella anytime.




XOXOXOXO

What Geeks Say In Their Sleep

Dear A...sweet, geeky man who is occasionally more machine now than man. Your coding work, I fear, has stolen some piece of your brain that may be irreplaceable. At least your technology riddled inner self is amiable, even in sleep. 

Just had to share this experience I had last night around 3 A.M.

So, its pitch black and I'm sleeping and then I wake up to that oh-so-familiar pit pat pit pat pit pat sound of small feet coming down the hall in the dark. And I hear Ru pad up to A's side of the bed and say quietly but insistently, "Daddy?"
There is no real response and I think about intervening but, I note that he's looking for A and decide not to meddle so I lie there quietly in the dark and listen instead.
"Daddy???"
*finally, grunt-style acknowledgment from A*
(Good enough...Ru forges ahead) "
Mommy was making a typing noise, typing on her computer in the rocking chair in my room but her is not there now." (hmmm clearly he's been dreaming...there is no way I was up typing at 3, heh) I wait to see what A will say to soothe him back to sleep.
*There is a slight pause from A and the air hangs still for a bit.* Then:
"Well." (Brightly) *another small pause while Ru and I wait for the rest*
(A continuing)
"What you should do is make a draft of the document using your template and then transfer the template over."
*And here I suddenly have to burrow deeply into my pillow to keep from laughing uproariously and ruining the whole serious scene and wait to see what Ru will do with that*
There is a long pause...and I peek over A's shoulder and see Ru's eyes, saucer-wide peeking over the edge of the bed. And then he finally says:
"Daddy? What are those?"

And then...yes, I did intervene. I explained that nobody was typing in his room and that I was right there and he didn't need to worry about templates or drafts tonight and did he want a kiss on his way back to bed? So he scampered off and A never even grunted again, the rest of the night.

He might have been sleeping deeply last night but his brain was on, full power...at least full power work mode. Heh.